Has Anxiety Become Your Constant Companion?

Are frequent bouts of anxiety interfering with your happiness? Do you worry excessively, playing out worst-case scenarios that keep you on edge? Often feeling judged by others, do social situations make you uncomfortable to the point that you often end up avoiding them?

Although you’ve always been a high achiever, perhaps now you feel like everything in your life has become too much to handle. As you juggle to keep all the spinning plates in the air, you may perceive that the pressure to be perfect continues to ratchet up, draining you of peace of mind.

You might feel underappreciated between obligations with work, family, and relationships. As a people pleaser, perhaps you struggle to maintain healthy boundaries but lack the confidence to say no. Whatever you do never seems to measure up to what others expect of you, which makes you feel like you’re never good enough.

You Might Suffer From The Physical Effects Of Anxiety

As stressful situations arise—such as driving or flying on a plane—anxiety can manifest in your body in uncomfortable ways. Whenever you’re under stress, you may experience muscle tension, migraines, nausea, tingling in your fingers or face, racing heart, or shortness of breath. If your brain won’t shut off at night, you might find it difficult to fall or stay asleep. At its worst, severe anxiety might spur panic attacks that mimic the sensation of having a heart attack and leave you gasping for air.  

Despite your best efforts to cope with anxiety, you may feel helpless as your world grows smaller around you. If only you could feel more relaxed and confident about yourself without the worry of how others perceive you.

Fortunately, therapy can address the issues related to anxiety, such as people-pleasing and discomfort in social settings. Working with a therapist who offers a holistic approach, anxiety treatment will be customized to fit your needs.

Anxiety Symptoms Affect Nearly 1 In 4 People In The United States

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), “27.3 percent of American adults—which breaks down to one in four people—have symptoms of an anxiety disorder.” In particular, “women are more than twice as likely as men to get an anxiety disorder in their lifetime.”  

As women living in the modern era, we are expected to have successful and fulfilling careers, look a certain way, and have strong social relationships—all the while maintaining our mental health. This can be a tall order when we are contending with the expectations placed upon us to be the perfect partner, family member, friend, and co-worker. As stressors continue to pile up, we feel like we’re not matching up to our peers, which can often lead to anxiety.

During The Covid-19 Pandemic, We Were Able To Hit The Pause Button

The pandemic offered an opportunity for life to slow down, allowing us to take an inventory of what was important to us. Although living through the shutdown was challenging for everyone, one positive outcome was the spotlight placed on mental health. No longer a shameful thing no one discusses, our culture has become more open about sharing mental health struggles. This pause has provided the reflection we need to change things up and strive for what we truly want in life.

Although seeking therapy has begun to lose its stigma, we can fall into the trap of temporary fixes to address anxiety. We may equate “self-care” to going to the spa or getting our nails done, but this sort of pampering will not address the root cause of anxiety.

Psychotherapy offers you the opportunity for truthful introspection with a trained therapist who knows how to treat anxiety. Dedicating an hour each week to anxiety treatment can make a significant improvement in your outlook and how you manage symptoms.

Therapy Can Help You Discover The Joy Of Living Without Anxiety

Before starting therapy, you may have been living for years with many unhealthy thought patterns swirling around in your head that have never been addressed. Perhaps some of your deepest childhood wounds have been suppressed and remain unhealed.

Therapy offers you a safe and supportive environment to examine and process your emotional landscape at your own pace. Building a strong rapport with you offers the comfort to discuss what’s on your mind without holding back. With a well-rounded approach that relates to you as a whole person, you can begin to process your emotions and heal from within. I offer the extra support you need to reach your goals while also keeping you accountable.

What To Expect In Sessions

As we embark on therapy, we will establish a baseline of where you are as it relates to anxiety symptoms as well as identify where you want to be. We will also take an inventory of your overall satisfaction within the different aspects of your life and then focus on the two areas of greatest concern. By gaining an understanding of how your anxiety symptoms impact you, we can then develop a customized strategy for addressing them. This approach enables you to experience immediate relief.

Once you’re feeling more grounded, we can dig a little deeper, perhaps exploring any false narratives you may have about yourself that developed in childhood and continue to affect how you relate to others. By bringing awareness to how the past relates to the present, you can become more intentional about how you show up in the world. We will also examine your core values and strengths. Once you understand your value and your confidence improves, you will have a much easier time asking for what you want and setting healthy boundaries with others.

A Holistic Approach To Anxiety Treatment

I draw upon various modalities to help reduce anxiety. By implementing a holistic approach that incorporates a variety of strategies, such as mindfulness-based stress reduction, visualization, physical movement, breathing exercises, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), together we can address anxiety in both body and mind.

Lifestyle changes can be an effective way of reducing anxiety and fostering healthy self-care habits. Whatever contemplative practice resonates with you—whether it’s practicing gratitude, journaling, walking, or meditation—incorporating a time each day to process your emotions can be very beneficial to your well-being.

In addition, (CBT) for anxiety offers helpful skill-building strategies, such as quieting negative self-talk. EMDR can be a helpful modality for anxiety as well. When traumatic memories continue to impact you, EMDR effectively turns off those internal alarms and helps soothe your nervous system.

By learning ways to manage anxiety, therapy can help restore newfound peace and calm to your life. Imagine waking up each morning feeling good about the day that lies ahead without a care in the world.

But You May Wonder Whether Anxiety Therapy Is Right For You…

I’m afraid that once I begin anxiety counseling, it will go on indefinitely.

A common concern many people have is that therapy is forever. However, by collaborating with you to create concrete, achievable goals for anxiety therapy, we ensure that treatment will be solution-focused and effective in meeting your goals. Working as a team with you throughout treatment, as your counselor, I will help you work toward reaching the goals you identify in therapy, for example overcoming social anxiety, panic attacks, or people-pleasing behavior.

Does seeking treatment for anxiety mean that I’m “crazy”?

One of the beneficial outcomes of the Covid-19 pandemic is the awareness that it brought to mental health. Seeking therapy for such disorders as anxiety has been increasingly destigmatized. After all, there is no shame in admitting that you need help coping with life’s challenges. With over 20 years of experience as a therapist, I have worked with people from all walks of life, such as other professionals like engineers, teachers, people in the health care field and other therapists, who are looking for ways to curb anxiety. I can help you, too.

Anxiety therapy is too expensive.

Look at anxiety counseling as an investment in yourself. Although it’s easy to calculate the monetary cost of therapy, your life will always improve when you put in the work. When you make a commitment to yourself, you will grow into a better, healed version of yourself.

As a private pay practice, I have streamlined the process of working with your insurance provider. Most PPO insurance policies offer some reimbursement from the services you receive from me.

Are You Ready To Get Your Anxiety Under Control?

With anxiety in check, everything becomes easier and more enjoyable. If you’re ready to find out more about anxiety therapy with me and would like to schedule a free 15-minute consultation, you may call (562) 888-1856 or visit my contact page.

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